


Fledgling

by Twigwise



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Abusive Parents, Anxiety Disorder, Backstory, Childhood, Cybertronian biology, Major Original Character(s), Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Panic Attacks, Pre-Canon, Prologue, Racism, Therapy, Transformer Sparklings, red alert is cybertronian transgender, red alert is the main character but that is not apparent at first, sparkling designations
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-19
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2018-09-18 12:51:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 11,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9386045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twigwise/pseuds/Twigwise
Summary: Before the war, there weren't many sparklings. That isn't to say there were none, though. Red Alert, despite what many think, did start as a sparkling- bright-opticked and hopeful and searching the sky for stars and signs. The hard parts came later. But this story starts with two loving creators, a squalling newspark, and the shining roads of Iacon.OR: A Three Lamborghini Childhood





	1. Newspark

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: This fic features a lot of noncanon worldbuilding, speculation, robotic biology, character development, anthropological extrapolation, and picking-and-choosing from canon to suit my needs. First chapter mostly features OCs, but will focus more on Red Alert (Sparkling designation: Lock) in later chapters. He is the main character, though this story is also written with the idea in mind that Sunstreaker and Sideswipe are his younger brothers, and as such they will appear heavily later on as well.

Tocsin and Broadside were with spark. Or, more accurately, Broadside was carrying a spark, a healthy and almost mature sparkling orbiting his brilliant yellow-gold spark. The two of them were police, Velocity style Enforcer models, natives of Iacon and proud of it.

Tocsin was the smaller of the two, lithe, with broad head fins and optics that seemed to sparkle with mischief. He was scarlet, orange and gold, a garish combination, but the way his plating was arranged made it flattering on him. He was a vain mech as well, but kind and good natured at spark. His alt-mode was a low-to-the-ground racer, ideal for darting in and out of traffic in pursuit of suspects.

Broadside had a similarly sporty alt-mode, but slightly bulkier. Unlike Tocsin, who had a lightbar that moved under his chest in biped mode, his lightbar sat on his lower back. He was larger than his Conjunx, bulky in the torso and shoulders, though not much taller. With his white and black paintjob, nobody would mistake him for much other than an officer of the law; his faceplates were as stern as his coloring, too, hiding a quick wit and cutting sense of humor. Being that he and Tocsin were of the same frame type, they looked similar overall, but Broadside's helm was crowned with sensor horns instead of his mate's colorful fins.

The two of them were Conjunx Endura, and madly in love. That wasn't why they were having a sparkling, though. They had a plan- to raise a small brood of law enforcers to continue their life's passion of protecting and serving the citizens of Iacon. That was, after all, why they chose the frame they did for their first sparkling. Identical to their own, another Enforcer frame.

Tocsin was currently painstakingly applying the protoform's first coat of paint. Being a first frame for a sparkling, it didn't have a proper T-Cog installed, but that was no reason (as Tocsin said) to let the protoform look ugly.

"You have spatters all up your faceplates, dear," said Broadside, coming into the sparkling's nursery. Idly, Tocsin reached up and smeared the red paint worse onto his olfactory ridge. Laughing with a pneumatic hiss, Broadside grabbed a clean rag and buffed the pigment off his mate's face.

"Thanks," Tocsin mumbled, offlining one optic and lifting the protoform's arm to examine the quality of the coat he'd applied. The protoform was, for the most part, white, though there were almost as many parts in a subdued, but rich, red.

"Are you sure it's a good idea to have gone to my faceplate manufacturer for the protoform?" asked Broadside after a moment of listening to the soft glide of the paintbrush over metal. He examined the face of the to-be sparkling; it was austere and chiseled, much like his own, with a broad and hooked olfactory ridge and a lack of cheekplates, showing the mechanical parts underneath, and proto-mandibles extending from under the chin. He didn't think it was suitable for a sparkling, a visage far too serious for one so young, and so small.

Tocsin looked up at him and smiled fondly. "I think the little one will be well-suited to looking as handsome as you," he said, optics pulsing faintly. "And," he continued more seriously, "you said this sparklet felt precocious, why not let them be mature-looking?"

Broadside wasn't convinced, and though he wasn't much for expressing emotion, Tocsin could read it on his faceplates. Tocsin's expression softened further.

"If it makes you feel better, next one can have my facial design."

Broadside nodded. "That's a deal."

With that, Broadside settled across the berth-turned-worktable from his mate, and watched the stroke of Tocsin's paintbrush over the metal that would be their sparkling.

 

\---------

 

Several orns after that exchange, Broadside and Tocsin delicately transported the empty protoform through the streets of Iacon. It was laying in a bassinet of sorts, swaddled in foam blankets to prevent any jostling from scratching or dinging the delicate frame. It would also be of use to keep the newspark from injuring themselves when they were transferred into their new body.

That was, after all, the meaning of the excursion the Conjunx were on that morning, two suns in the sky and the third edging up over the crowded horizon. They were headed to a military medical center to have a doctor properly transfer the sparkling to what would be their spark chamber, and supplement the protoform with the Sentio Metallico needed to bridge the connections between spark and processor. Being that both Broadside and Tocsin had been military guards for a time before their vows to each other and subsequent transfer to the police force, they had access to veteran services- some of the best services available to them.

The medical center was not crowded, that early in the day, and the two were ushered promptly to the sparkling ward, where their doctor awaited them. She was the typical medibot colors, hot-metal red and crisp, sterile white, but she was otherwise quite different from most other medibots. She was distinct from most mechs, really, in that she had never abandoned her arachnid alt-mode taken after a tour on an organic planet. Her name was Cogswheel, an older veteran of the Autobot Academy order, but her age belied her nature; she was sweet and caring, adept at using her many limbs for her craft, but gentle, and good with sparklings. She was one of the only doctors that specialized in pediatrics, or sparkling medical care, in Iacon. Certainly the only one that Tocsin and Broadside both could afford and thought highly of.

"How is the newspark doing?" Cogswheel asked, forgoing a greeting. Before either Tocsin or Broadside could answer, she swept them into a delivery room.

"Eager to get out," Broadside said, a palm over his chestplate and smile on his face. It was true, the newspark was fluttering with anxious energy, knowing that something exciting was happening through the tenuous bond they shared with Broadside.

Cogswheel smiled, carefully taking the bundled up protoform from Tocsin and laying it gently on the mediberth. "I understand. They get eager when they sense it's delivery time."

Tocsin and Cogswheel chatted amiably, about racers, about a vacation to Praxus Cogswheel had coming up, about old friends from service days. Broadside listened; he wasn't one for talk, and he was focusing on the feeling of the newspark orbiting his own. Soon the little one would be in their own body, and the carrier-bond would fade away. It was bittersweet. There was a worried pulse from the newspark, and he sent the reassuring thought of open skies and a warm hug back.

He didn't have much time to think on that, though, as Cogswheel pulled over a medical tray with a spark chamber and a flask of Sentio Metallico, among the necessary equipment to handle the newspark and initiate the first-online protocol in the protoform.

"Lay back, please, Broadside, and open up your chestplate," Cogswheel ordered, not unkindly.

Broadside complied, laying back on the seat he had taken next to the mediberth where the protoform lay. It wasn't uncomfortable, but his fans clicked on with nerves. He retracted his chestplate with a soft hiss, and with a command, brought his spark chamber to the fore of his chassis.

Cogswheel hummed and picked up the empty spark chamber and an electroscalpel. She removed the end of a medical uplink cable from the port of a free wrist- the benefits of having many of them- and hooked into a surgical port in Broadside's chest. Broadside's optics offlined, instinctively unsettled by a doctor rummaging in his chest, and tried to keep still as Cogswheel sent a databurst through his system, opening his spark chamber and leaving his spak exposed. It was a strange and wrong feeling, to be exposed to someone other than his bonded, but, he rationalized with himself, it was for the good of the sparkling.

"Do you have a sparkling designation picked?" Cogswheel asked, making small talk to distract the mech she was waving dangerous instruments near the spark of.

"Yes, we've chosen the name "Lock,"" replied Broadside. Cogswheel nodded- not that Broadside could see- and inspected the two sparks before her. Both healthy, one large and bright, but the smaller one- a cool red bordering on purple, the sign of a powerful spark- was even more brilliant.

Cogswheel smiled. "This little one is going to be something special, I would say," Cogswheel said. Tocsin tittered in appreciation. Broadside just cycled his intake.

Before he could respond, Cogswheel's deft hands delicately sliced the connection between carrier and newspark, and scooped the newspark into the spark chamber prepared for them.

Broadside spat static at the shock and slight pain of the sudden loss, but it was lost in the flurry of Cogswheel disconnecting from his surgical port and uplinking just as fast to the spark chamber she held. All six of her hands fluttering in a blur that neither Tocsin or Broadside could follow, she began installing the spark chamber into the protoform in the center of the room. Sentio Metallico was injected in key receptors through the protoform, and Broadside sat up from his place to watch in fascination as the spark energy of their sparkling activated the shimmering mercurial metal, sending it flowing through the body, writing hard code and making connections and hardware the spark needed to survive, that no protoform engineer could ever design themselves.

Then, it was quiet in the room, save for the soft clinking of Cogswheel's tools making microadjustments here and there, and the whirring of Broadside and Tocsin's excited cooling systems. Tocsin was just about to speak up, try and ask what Cogswheel was doing to fill the silence, when a squall erupted from the form on the mediberth.

Light shone into the room- cyan blue optics onlining for the first time. The quiet buzz of systems initializing and components warming up, all drowned under the shriek of a vocalizer being calibrated by a very fussy newspark. Gathering the bundle into her many arms, Cogswheel straightened and turned around, facing the enthralled creators behind her.

The crying quieted as the optics peering out from the red helm settled on the forms of the creators.

"Lock," Cogswheel said gently, hushing the last of the static from the sparkling's vocalizer, "Welcome to Cybertron."


	2. Strange

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tocsin and Broadside start to notice that their sparkling isn't like others....

Lock was, from the beginning, a very strange sparkling.

That wasn't to say there are many normal sparklings; despite creators joking about how useful one would be, there was no such luck in finding a user manual for their sparklings. To know where one sparkling's behavior was an outlier from their peers was difficult to say the least. All the same, Lock was a _very_ strange sparkling.

After he had finished calibrating his vocalizer as best a newspark could, he was an inordinately quiet sparkling. He would click and burble static, but wouldn't scream or cry when his fuel levels were low. He would rev up his tiny engine or cycle his fans, but never make a noise loud enough to draw attention when Tocsin or Broadside were in another room of their apartment. The two Conjunx learned to have one optic and both audials attuned to little Lock's nursery at all times.

And when they could get Lock to fuel, it was a challenge. The mechling would dip his fingers into his cube of medical low-grade (manufactured to be high in essential metals for sparklings) and stuff his tiny three-fingered fist in his oral cavity, sucking the low-grade out of the little joints as slowly as possible. He'd then wait, optics flickering in what would be read as suspicion from an older cybertronian. Breems would pass before Lock, his little head nodding, would repeat the ritual. It would take joors for the cube to be depleted. Both Broadside and Tocsin were worried about not only this behavior- that kept Lock from maintaining proper fuel levels- but the other quirks the sparkling had picked up.

They would drop their sparkling off at a sitter when they both had to work, and Lock's behavior was never reported as anything other than impeccable. Too much so.

Lock wouldn't play with the other sparklings in the sitter's care. Apparently, he shied away from them, preferring to play with picture-loaded datapads and drawing supplies, or building towers and fortresses with blocks. And were another sparkling to disturb him, he'd methodically crawl away, focusing on a different one of his chosen activities.

While the other sparklings were chattering away in youngling-speak, Lock was slowly starting to pick up Iaconian proper. According to the sitter Tocsin and Broadside had chosen (an older mech with a grown sparkling of his own, always covered in stickers and messy paint smears) it was highly unusual for Lock to be picking up Common so early. The sparkling, not even ready for his first frame upgrade yet, would sound out the glyphs in the datapads he looked at, careful and focused, until the word sounded like something his creators would vocalize.

And, most worryingly, Lock acted like a youngling that was from an incredibly abusive household. Thankfully, the sitter Tocsin and Broadside entrusted their sparkling to was an old friend, and didn't report them to Sparkling Investigation Services. Not that they were doing anything wrong, but...

Lock flinched with his whole body when there were unexpected or loud noises. He would curl up into as small a ball as possible when another sparkling or youngling raised their vocal output above typical speaking levels. Lock would only sit in a corner with his back to the wall, optics constantly flitting over the other inhabitants of whatever room he was in. He relaxed, at home, around his Sire and Creator, but in public he would shrink in his transfer bassinett if any 'bot put their face close, to look at the sparkling. He was always drawn impossibly taut for a mechling his age, and Tocsin and Broadside worried, greatly, that their creation would snap from the pressure he was putting on himself.

But sparklings mature quickly, and it seemed like no time at all that Lock was due for his first pre-upgrade checkup with Cogswheel.

Lock, like so many other sparklings, adored Cogswheel. He had been brought in for checkups over the solar cycles before, and instead of shirking away from her face, as he did with other mechs he wasn't familiar with, Lock would reach up and try to cling to the doctor whenever he saw her. It was a behavior he only exhibited with his creators, and that itself was rare. Tocsin was jealous of the doctor because of her way with his own sparkling, but Broadside just said it was probably Lock feeling comfortable with the EM field of the one that delivered him.

Today, Lock tittered and clicked happily when his creators wheeled his bassinet into the medical center. He had already come to recognize the place his "friend" Cogswheel worked. It was busy at the center, which kept the sparkling quiet otherwise, though, hiding from the other mechanisms in the waiting room by burrowing into the protective foam that surrounded him.

Finally, it was the small family's turn to see their pediatrician. Cogswheel welcomed them into an exam room decorated with stars and planets of a cartoonish simplicity. Lock relaxed at the quiet, poking his helm out from the foam he was hiding under.

"Hello, Lock, how are you today?" Cogswheel asked, cooing at the blue-opticked sparkling.

"Gogwee! Gogwee!" Though Lock was learning quickly how to say words that he saw on picture-pads, he was slower in figuring out the correct pronunciation of designations. Broadside thought it was adorable.

There wasn't much time during the checkup for small talk; Cogswheel was busy asking development questions, or running systems checks and program updates, double-checking how the protoform Lock was using would take the upgrade to a larger size. The procedure would be scheduled for a couple vorns in the future, but Cogswheel needed an accurate diagnostic in order to preform the upgrade properly. Occasionally, she would ask a question, and either Tocsin would answer, or Lock would, in quiet and broken Iaconian. At that, Cogswheel commented on how strange it was that Lock was already capable of processing simple questions and vocalizing answers.

Finally, the formal part of the exam was over. Cogswheel balanced Lock on one hip and picked up a datapad in one of her many hands, typing out the information Tocsin and Broadside would need to prepare Lock for his first upgrade. She handed the datapad over to Broadside and reset her vocalizer; Lock laughed like a pneumatic brake at the clicks her vocalizer made.

"I installed the data needed for him to start walking on just his legs; that will initialize after his next recharge cycle. Be prepared for him to fall a lot as he calibrates his gyroscopes and learns to balance. Now, do the two of you have any questions about Lock's developmental progress? He is already far ahead of other sparklings for the stage he's at."

Tocsin and Broadside looked at each other, and Broadside nodded at his mate. They'd talked over their worries, and at this point, it was a good idea to share them with their sparkling's doctor.

"Well, yes. Lock is, well," Tocsin uncharacteristically fumbled with his glyphs, trying to word his question properly. "He's _skittish_. Doesn't play with other sparklings, doesn't try to get into trouble, doesn't take risks... He just sits and plays with construction toys, or stares at our crystal garden at home, or looks at datapads. He doesn't cry or scream, he seems suspicious of his energon, and he flinches at loud or sudden noises. If he was in a household I was investigating, I'd think he was being _abused_. He really does act like a sparkling from a bad home, but we're doing everything we've been told to.

"I'm- we both, Broadside and I, we're worried for him. We want him to be healthy, and happy, but it seems like no matter what we do, he's scared and nervous when he leaves the house. Pit, even in the house, sometimes."

Cogswheel was silent for a moment, then nodded. She handed Lock back over to Tocsin, who cradled the sparkling gently to his chest. Lock watched Cogswheel with wide optics, curious and suspicious, but the doctor simply pulled out a dataslug. She handed it over to Broadside, who tucked it into his subspace with the datapad he'd been fiddling with.

"That's the information of a psychiatrist and spark-analyst I work with. His name is Rung, and he does _wonderful_ work with mechs that have paranoid tendencies. After the upgrade that's coming up, Lock will probably start speaking in more comprehensible sentences; if he still is struggling then, interpersonally, with these behaviors, you can take him to Rung. It sounds like Lock has a glitch that my diagnostics can't pick up because it's well integrated into his little systems, and Rung can help Lock learn to deal with that. Okay?"

Tocsin and Broadside shared a look of doubt and worry. Cogswheel exvented softly.

"I know, no creator wants to hear that their sparkling might have a glitch. But you need to be prepared for the possibility that little Lock here might not develop like other sparklings, or might have behavioral issues. If that's the case, you need to see a mech that can help him learn to cope with what's causing this. Otherwise, the problem will only get worse. Then you'll _really_ have trouble on your servos."

Broadside nodded, putting a hand on Tocsin's shoulder paneling. "We understand."

Cogswheel smiled brightly, though something tinged her optics slightly. Worry, perhaps, or pity? It was gone in an instant, so neither of the mechs before her dwelt on it.

"Great. Now, if you want to schedule the appointment for Lock's upgrade at the front desk? I'll see you in a couple vorns! Bye, sweetie!" Cogswheel pressed a soft kiss to the brim of Lock's helm, and the sparkling buzzed and beeped happily. With that, she left the exam room, allowing Tocsin and Broadside to collect their belongings and head to the front of the building.

"Broadside," Tocsin said lowly, subspacing a bag of Lock's toys, "We're not really going to take Lock to a shrink, right? He's so young, there can't possibly be anything wrong with him, not like that."

Broadside was quiet for a klik before nodding. "I'm sure it's nothing that serious. We don't need the extra expenses, money's tight as it is..."

Lock looked between his creators, a frown on his little face. But if there was anything on the sparkling's mind, it was lost when the three left the exam room and Lock hid back in his transfer bassinet.

And if the sparkling looked disappointed when the family arrived back at their home and Broadside threw the dataslug with the psychiatrist's information on it into the incinerator, nobody noticed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I expected this chapter to be a bit shorter, but it's actually decent length. Nice! 
> 
> Little Lock (Red Alert) will be the POV character in the next chapter, for those wondering when we'll actually start seeing his paranoid tendencies really come to fore. And depending on the pacing, the next chapter or the one after that will feature Rung, his psychiatrist!
> 
> Thank you for reading, leaving Kudos, and comments!


	3. Onset

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lock is precocious, and it means that he worries. Constantly.

Bright blue optics scanned the room, reset, and scanned the room again. Suspicion clouded the tiny faceplates they were set into. The room, a small nursery, was clear of any debris or danger, but still, Lock's CPU was crowing that something was very, very dangerous. His sensor horns sparked with electricity, lighting up the room briefly.

  
_You're not supposed to be doing this, they're going to find you, they're going to give you away, you're stupid, you're going to be hurt, the toychest is going to fall on you, you're going to fall, the crib will tip over on you, you are going to die, danger, danger, danger._

  
Lock tried to ignore the nonstop inundation of warnings his CPU was giving him, though it was hard. Logically, he knew that all the warnings couldn't be true, but the fear was still there.

  
He was standing up in his crib, listening to the sound of his creators assembling his new berth in the next room. Originally, his plan had been to climb out of the crib and watch them, but the warnings from his CPU made him doubt the soundness of that plan. Just the past orn, he had been upgraded to his stage two sparkling body, and he was still getting used to it- and the ability to stand and walk on his own. It was exciting; if it didn't come with so many variables and risks, he'd probably be even more excited.

  
Idly, Lock ran his fingertips under his jaw. It itched there, a faint ghost of his self-repair systems starting to grow something there that he couldn't identify. Similarly, his denta itched, but Broadside had chastised him when he stuffed his hand in his mouth, so he tried to avoid doing that. Dimly, Lock knew that his behavior wasn't typical for a sparkling his age and developmental stage, but wasn't sure how. His CPU, certainly, screamed "stupid, stupid, freak, freak," at him when he failed to interact with other sparklings at his daycare. But that wasn't incentive enough to "play" with them, not when the same CPU whispered that _they were going to mock him, hurt him, they hated him, everyone hated him_.

  
Since he'd begun to have a concept of words and glyphs, the general feelings of stress and anxiety and wrongness that would keep him from recharging, or eating, or squalling like a normal sparkling, had formed into something more sinister- words of warning, of false praise, of insults, of danger. These words were spoken, to his mind's audial, in the voice of his creators, or the mech that watched him while his creators were at work, or even his doctor. They were rational voices that spoke of possibilities innumerable, of death and injury and abandonment.

  
Lock didn't know how to shut them out. He didn't know if it was possible. It was like living five lives at once, and only him being very careful would keep him in the one that didn't end with him dying.

  
His sensor horns sparked again, sending shivers down his spinal supports. A loud noise- Broadside dropping something, probably- echoed through the room, and he flinched away, hitting the protective railing of the crib. It seemed that his horns were doing that more and more as time went on- crackling with electricity in time with the voices yelling "danger, danger!" at him.

  
With a soft thud, Lock dropped on his aft, curling up with his knees to his chest and offlining his optics. Scenario after scenario, all frighteningly realistic, marched through his head. There was one of Broadside dropping the new berth on Tocsin, crushing him. There was another of the crib Lock was in, already too small for him, collapsing under his weight and skewering him through and through with a support strut. There was one of the apartment complex they lived in collapsing into the hollow Iaconian substreets below, killing them all instantly. There was the same one, but leaving little Lock trapped in a space in the rubble so that he could starve slowly, agonizingly, as his systems shut off one by one.

  
Lock wasn't taught concept of death, not properly. But it featured so prominently in his daydreams, he couldn't escape it, and he accepted it as something that would happen to him, and soon. Even sparklings have a concept of recharging and not waking up, but most think they would simply processor-echo dreams for the rest of time. Lock knew what death meant, though he didn't know how. And he knew it was coming for him.

  
"Lock?"

  
The sparkling onlined his optics and snapped taught, jumping back from the noise that startled him. When his optics adjusted to the light, though, he saw the "threat" was simply his Sire, Tocsin. Who wore a concerned frown on his handsome face.

  
"It's just me, sweetspark. I'm not gonna hurt you..." Tocsin raised his hands , palms out, showing nothing in them. Lock relaxed marginally, ignoring the hissing in his CPU that his Sire was lying.

  
Tocsin came over to the crib, and gingerly, Lock raised his arms. "Up, please!"

  
With a smile, the garishly colored mech lifted the sparkling, settling Lock on his hip and pressing a kiss to the brim of his helm. Lock squirmed a little and smiled, and Tocsin glanced in his mouth.

  
"Huh. Hey Broadside, c'mere."

 

Obediently, Lock's black-and-white Carrier stood from where he was assembling the small berth before him, and plodded over to his Conjunx. "Yes, sunspark?"

  
Tocsin gently placed a servo on Lock's lips. "Open your mouth, please, Lock."

  
Fidgeting, feeling like he had done something wrong, Lock obliged, baring his denta. Broadside and Tocsin both peered inside, and something unreadable flickered in the EM field between them. Lock kept his mouth open until it hurt, and past that.

  
"Those look like.... little fangs?"

  
"But we- he's supposed to have crushing dentae, like us. We designed him like that, installed those dentae, not... these?"

  
Tocsin and Broadside were talking in hushed, serious tones, but being that Lock was sitting on Tocsin's hip joint, he could hear everything they were saying. And he had the impression he had done something very wrong, and was about to get in a lot of trouble. His sensor horns sparked and flashed, the voices in his head whispering that _this was it, they were going to give him away for being bad_.

  
As soon as he processed that thought, panic built up in Lock's tanks, overwhelming him. He liked his Sire and Carrier, he loved them, they were nice! He didn't want to be sent away, he didn't want to be abandoned! The terror overwhelmed him as the thoughts kept spinning and gaining momentum, until he couldn't understand the words Tocsin and Broadside were saying any longer.

  
Over the quiet murmurs of discussion, a piercing siren erupted, punctuated by the flashing of lights both from Lock's lightbar, just installed recently, and the crackling electricity from his sensor horns. Both mechs jumped, not used to hearing such a clamor from their sparkling, but immediately turned to the little mechling, who was hiding his faceplates in his hands and shaking.

 

"Please, please, please, don't give me away! I'm sorry!"

  
If Lock had been looking, he would have seen Tocsin and Broadside's faces contort in despair, in worry, in confusion. He did, however, feel two sets of gentle, engine-warmed hands on his frame, stroking his back plating in what was a soothing motion.

  
"We aren't going to give you away, sweetspark, whatever gave you that idea?"

  
"We love you, dearling, you didn't do anything wrong."

  
Gently, patiently, the two creators murmured platitudes to their creation, who slowly clicked his siren off, uncurled from the tense ball he was in, stopped flashing his lightbar in his panic. His optics bright and distressed, seeping light at the edges, Lock peered out of his hands and examined the confused faces crowding him.

  
"'m sorry, I don't know what I did wrong."

  
"You didn't do anything wrong," Broadside repeated what he'd said before. "Your denta are just.... different from what we installed. We're confused."

  
"'m sorry," Lock said again.

  
Tocsin huffed, and upon seeing Lock wince, sagged a little, his plating losing its aggravated positioning.

  
"You don't need to apologize. Stop that," Tocsin said, not unkindly, but not patiently, either. Immediately, Lock's instinct was to apologize again, but he covered his mouth with a hand and shut off his vocalizer. Oops.   
\---------  
Later that orn, when Lock was finally calmed, had finally inspected his new berth and told them it was safe, and was finally in recharge, Tocsin and Broadside sat down with cubes of high-grade, and discussed their sparkling.

  
"Did you see how his sensor horns flashed? That can't- that can't be healthy, Broadside," Tocsin said, plating shifting over itself in a display of worry.

  
Broadside nodded in agreement. "I don't know why that would happen. Unless..."

  
"Unless?"

  
"Remember, I told you what I thought I felt, in the frequency of his spark when I was carrying?"

  
"That can't be it. It can't be. He's going to be an Enforcer, we agreed on that."

  
The two fell silent for a few breems. Tocsin got up once to refill his cube at the dispensary; Broadside just stared at the glowing fuel in his own cube.

  
Tocsin finally broke the silence. "What was the name of that shrink Cog wanted us to take him to? Wring?"

  
Broadside snapped his helm up and focused his optics on his Conjunx. "Tocsin, we don't have the money to pay for something like that, it's not covered by insurance, you know that. Especially just after Lock's upgrade..."

  
"I'll get money," Tocsin said dismissively. "I have my ways. I know some mechs that can help us, temporarily. We just- we need to fix this. You saw how he reacted earlier, that's not- that's not normal."

  
"I don't think so, no," Broadside replied, shifting uncomfortably on the couch. Tocsin's ways of getting spare Shanix were questionable, at best. Even for an Enforcer, Tocsin treaded the line of legality quite often. "If it's for Lock's health... just. Be careful, Tocsin."

  
The gold in Tocsin's paintjob flickered in the dim lighting of their apartment, as he slugged back the last of his Energon cube. "I'm always careful."

  
In the other room, Lock listened to the faint conversation, and worried.


	4. Maladaptive Daydreaming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Broadside and Lock travel to meet with a psychologist. Lock daydreams on the way.

Outside the tram car, the golden spires of Iacon Heights rushed by. The express tram made it hard to track the buildings that were closer, all blurring together into a smear of yellow, punctuated by the more distant skyscrapers. The tram rocked back and forth ever-so-slightly, unnoticed except by the most sensitive of mechs. One of whom was also the youngest mechling on the tram.

  
Lock wasn't sure where he and Broadside were going. He knew that Tocsin was at work, having headed off to the police station before Lock had booted up for the orn. Broadside had gotten him his morning Energon from the dispensary, and polished out some scuffs on his knees, and tipped his head back to examine the mandibular bumps that were currently being "grown" by Lock's self-repair system. Then the two, creator and creation, then left the apartment for the tram station just in time for them to catch the express just after the morning cross-city rush.

  
Broadside had chosen a tram car that was fairly empty; the only other occupants being a red heavy-duty ground veteran type, who was recharging, and a green mech with an unidentifiable alt-mode and a visor that covered their whole face. The green mech was seemingly engrossed in a datapad, but being unable to see their optics made Lock nervous- what if they were staring at him? Planning to attack? How could he defend himself, he was so small next to them, maybe Broadside would protect him; he couldn't rely on that, though, and considered his options for how to attack the much bigger Cybertronian.

  
"Lock, how are you doing?"

  
Broadside had noticed, then, that Lock's body language had become tense and hostile, his proto-plating shifting into a fluffed position to make him look bigger than he was. And his sensor horns, too, were sparking ever-so-slightly as Lock shuffled through his thoughts. But Broadside's words pulled him back into the present, if only for a moment.

  
"Nervous, Carrier," Lock responded.

  
Broadside nodded, a small but noticeable inclination of his helm, and placed a hand on Lock's back, smoothing the plating there down.

  
"Watch the progress of the tram out the window. I've heard it's quite calming," Broadside said gently, bending over to put his vocalizations right in Lock's audial. Lock hummed, deep in his chassis, and turned around to prop his chin on the back of the seat.

  
Trying to track the process of the tram through Iacon was hard, but relaxing, and Lock passed the next dozen breems simulating the path he would take, if he were flying over the city. He giggled softly, imagining doing loops and dives around high-wires and skywalks between buildings, swerving to avoid fliers and patrols of the city's Seeker guard, flirting dangerously with a flock of avianoids. It was cathartic- something in Lock's CPU seemed to slide open, blanketing the niggling paranoia and anxiety with warm, calm comfort. Lock had never seen so much sky, or at least focused on it; the area of Iacon he was from was primarily residential high-rises, blotting out the sky so he could only see a thin strip of it from his window. This was amazing, it felt like an onlining after a defrag, or stretching out joints for the first time.   
He could almost feel the sensation of wind cooling his faceplates.

  
Suddenly excited, Lock imagined the possibilities of where Broadside might be taking him. It had to be someplace to get an upgrade! He had just had one recently, but something was obviously missing, from the way his spark ached like his frame was too small. Maybe they had put him in the wrong frame type. His thought process drifted to the open air outside and the plating on his back stood on end, reaching to be something it couldn't quite be. Wings. He wanted to have wings, he wanted to be able to execute the maneuvers he was simulating.

  
Something in his pedes itched, near the heel. The swaying of the tram suddenly didn't feel as noticeable, instead, Lock felt like he was standing on air. The plating lining his spinal strut felt too small. Looking at the sky felt like home. Logically, this could only mean one thing. Simply put, Lock reasoned, he was a flier, and placed in the wrong frame. That had to be easy to fix, right? And that had to be where he and Broadside were headed, for him to choose a new frame.

  
Broadside looked down at his youngling, a smile on his faceplates. "What's got you so happy, suddenly?"

  
"I re'lized where we're going!"

  
"Oh?"

  
Lock nodded vigorously. "We're getting me wings, right?"

  
Even in his excitement, Lock noticed the atmosphere change drastically when he vocalized his suspicion. Broadside stiffened, frowned, and Lock heard the quiet buzz of a commlink frequency opening, sending a message, and receiving a message.

  
_(His creators said they couldn't hear the buzzing when they or other mechs used their comms. Lock thought that was ridiculous; it was quiet, but high-pitched, and impossible to ignore.)_

  
Across the tram car, the green mech's head tipped up slightly, their plating shifting uncomfortably. Broadside looked at them, cycled his optics, and scowled. The other mech got up with a soft whirr of gears, and moved further down the tram car, out of audial range.

  
"Lock," Broadside whispered sternly, "you can't say things like that in public. Open a comm with me, please."

  
Confused, and the calm feeling from before gone like fog in the sun, Lock complied.

  
**.:Yes, Carrier?:.**

  
**.:I mean it, Lock, you can't say such ridiculous things in public. Someone might overhear. That's inappropriate.:.**

  
Lock tipped his head and turned his attention back out the window of the speeding tram. He tried, desperately, to recapture the feeling of simulated flying, but Broadside kept pinging him to pay attention.

  
**.:Why is it inappropriate, though, Carrier?:.**

  
Broadside sat back, denta gnawing at his lip. **.:You're an Enforcer. That is what we built you as. It's what you're meant to be. You will have wheels one day, not wings.:.**

  
**.:But... why? I want wings!:.**

  
**.:Wings are for fliers,:.** Broadside said, and his message was coded with disdain. Immediately Lock knew that meant that either there was something wrong with fliers, or that his Carrier hated them. He didn't know which was worse, with how his spark was suddenly aching for the air. **.:Fliers are, at spark, violent and conniving. They wait for respectable mechs to turn their back and take advantage of them. Even with the best intentions, it's just how Primus made them. I carried you, I know your spark. You're not a flier.:.**

  
**.:But...:.**

  
**.:Lock, that's enough,:.** Broadside said sharply, his comm as sharp as the fangs that were growing in Lock's mouth. Lock curled into himself, hugging his knees to his chestplate. More gently, coded with love and good intent, Broadside followed up with, **.:Besides, the frame we chose for you is a sign of our love for you. Rejecting that would be like rejecting our love for you, and I know you wouldn't hurt us like that.:.**

  
Lock fidgeted, twisting his fingers in between the plates of his hands. He didn't realize that he came so close to hurting his Creators. He didn't want to hurt them. He didn't want to be bad, or violent, or coded to hurt others. If that was what Broadside said of fliers, it had to be true- why would Broadside lie?

  
**.:No, sir, I don't want to hurt you,:.** Lock finally commed back, remorse woven into the message. **.:I'm sorry.:.**

  
**.:You didn't understand, Lock. You didn't mean what you said, we all make mistakes.:.** Broadside seemed to shine as the relief flowed through him, light catching his plating. Lock nodded, trying to hide the shame and hurt in his EM field.

  
The tram started to slow, and Lock lurched into Broadside's side with the momentum. Broadside wrapped an arm around Lock's smaller frame, holding the youngling close. But Lock didn't feel as safe as usual. Something coiled in his tanks, sludgy and fearful, whispering that Lock was unworthy, was bad, that Broadside hated him, and he exvented slowly, accepting the thoughts. They had to be true. He'd done something wrong, and though he didn't quite understand what it was, he knew it was a reflection on him.

  
"Creator, where are we going, then?" Lock asked, tentatively, as the tram came to a halt.

  
Broadside picked Lock up and held him at his hip. "We are visiting a doctor, that much you got right. He's a.... spark doctor, of sorts. A spark and CPU doctor. He wants to talk to you and get to know you, and know why you're frightened all the time, to help you not be frightened."

  
"Oh." Lock looked up, seeing far more sky than back home in the housing district. The buildings here were lower to the ground, more spread out, gilded and with wide, circular windows. Lock imagined standing on one and jumping, letting the air carry him high into the open sky. Imagining couldn't hurt, right? "What's his name?"

  
"Rung, he's very highly spoken of. He'll help you, as long as you answer his questions and speak when you're spoken to, alright?"

  
Lock nodded, curling into Broadside's chest. He did want to be less scared, after all.

  
The two approached a building, offices upon offices. There were stairs leading up into it, and Lock looked wistfully at the sky as it disappeared behind him, fear gnawing at his CPU.


	5. Waiting Game

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lock meets Rung.

Unlike the rest of the offices they had passed on the way in, the spark-doctor's suite was painted a light, pastel blue. It was like shimmering steel, a relaxing color, but Lock was hardly relaxed. Though Broadside kept reassuring him, he was incredibly nervous about meeting a new person, let alone talking to them for an extended period of time. Lock was stiff as he sat in the chair he'd been placed in in the waiting room.

  
Broadside was beside him, filling out forms on a datapad. Every so often he would ask Lock a question, such as "do you ever think about hurting mecha or mechanimals," or "do you think you are better than other mecha?" Lock would answer truthfully, but it made him even more nervous and feel as though something was rolling around in his fuel tanks, especially as Broadside ticked the answer down on the datapad without showing any emotion in his field or faceplates.

  
_(The answers, respectively, were "Yes, though I don't like to" and "No, I'm much worse.")_

  
Interspersed with the questions, Broadside was comming someone, probably Tocsin. Lock could hear the faint click-buzz-click of the frequency opening and closing. There were no real windows in the waiting room, and he felt distinctly claustrophobic, like the walls were bearing down on him. He wanted to be back somewhere with a view of the sky, or at least open streets. This office was small, and cramped, there were empty chairs lining the walls and the only "window" to speak of was to another room, where a bored-looking receptionist, a scrawny, wiry Cybertronian, sat shuffling through holographic files.

  
Eventually Broadside took the datapad and stylus back to the mech at the window. But it took many breems, almost a joor, before the receptionist stood, walked behind the wall, and opened the door to the next room.

  
"Sparkling designation: Lock of Lower Iacon?"

  
The receptionist was holding the datapad Broadside had filled out, and was looking at it without interest. He didn't notice, or made no acknowledgement that he did, when Lock's helm angled up as he snapped to attention. Broadside placed a hand on Lock's shoulder plating, nudging him out of his seat. It was a decently long way to the floor, considering Lock was only in his second frame, but he took the slight pain of landing hard on his pedes without wincing, thankful he hadn't been placed in one of the chairs made for bigger mechs.

  
"Follow me, please," the receptionist said, turning slightly to motion Lock into the short hallway. Lock walked forward, trying not to let anxiety stay his steps. Broadside stood with a hiss and groan of hydraulics and bad temper; Lock guessed that his legs had stopped transmitting data and the sensors were warming up again with a staticky prickle. That was always interesting.

  
The waiting room wasn't particularly large, but Lock was very small, so traversing it took a bit. When he arrived at the door, the receptionist pushed off of the wall they were leaning on and strode forward through the hall, lean legs carrying them forward quickly. Lock had to run to keep up, Broadside lagging behind with a grumble.

  
There were a couple other doors in the hallway, open and leading to empty rooms, but the receptionist led Lock back to a closed door with a handwritten name sign on it, reading "Rung." The receptionist knocked on the door, then opened it slightly- it was a rustic-style swinging door with a handle, and Lock couldn't stop staring at it in curiosity, so he missed what the receptionist murmured to the occupant of the room.

  
There was a sound of footfalls, quiet and shortly-spaced, indicating that the mech making them was short and light-framed. The receptionist passed the datapad he was holding through the crack of the door, before it then opened proper, and Lock peered around the back of the receptionist to examine the mech that opened it.

  
He was tiny, thin and barely armored, and what little armor and plating he did have was rounded instead of blocky. He had an old-fashioned look about him, his cream and orange plating vibrantly standing out from the steely blue finish of the walls. His optics were hidden behind a pair of glasses- something Lock would later learn the word for, and that they were horrifically obsolete in this orn and age- but looked wide and kind from what Lock could see of them, glowing a soft periwinkle. He wasn't very tall, in fact, he was only barely taller than Lock was. That, and the fact that his plating had no kibble at all, made him look like a strangely stretched-out sparkling. But then he smiled, and Lock caught sight of fanged dentae in his mouth. Lock's glossa brushed over the sharp points in his own mouth; this was his first time meeting an mech in their final frame that had denta like he did.

  
"You must be Lock, correct?" The mech asked, his EM field unfurling so that Lock could catch the brush of _welcome, greetings, safety is here_ in it. Lock nodded stiffly, and the mech smiled even wider, making his thin face look out of proportion.

  
"I am Rung, I'll be talking with you today. Would you like to come in?"

  
He gave Lock the option to say "no." Broadside did not. He nudged his sparkling forward, and Lock stumbled into the room, lacking the coordination to recover from his Carrier's gentle push.

  
The first thing Lock noticed about the room, other than how spacious it was, was the enormous circular window in the far wall. A relieved ripple spread through Lock's frame as he noticed the sky outside, unmarred by buildings. Then his optics scanned the rest of the office; lining the walls there were several couches and chairs of varying size, ranging from small enough for a mech Rung's size, to a standard one that would fit Tocsin or Broadside, all the way up to a recliner triple the size of the standard couch. Lock didn't know there were mechs large enough to sit on something that size comfortably. They were plush things, covered in expensive synthetic microfiber that was a rich mauve. In the middle of the room was a cluttered desk and comfortable spinning chair, obviously made specifically for a mech Rung's size.

  
Awkwardly, Lock stood in the threshold, until Rung said, "Please, you can make yourself comfortable. Anywhere you like." Lock made his way to the closest couch he could easily scramble onto, the one that was about the right size for a mech like his creators. It took a little work, but he managed to climb onto the luxuriant cushions, sitting upright and proper like Tocsin had shown him. He rested his hands on his knee joints, for lack of anywhere else to place them, and let his pedes dangle freely to the floor. The processor-ghost of imagined weightlessness struck him again, and he swung his pedes slightly, enjoying the feeling.

  
"Diecut, if you could show Lock's creator back to the waiting room and give him the selection of files I prepared for him to read through..?"

  
The receptionist, apparently named Diecut, nodded and turned to Broadside, leading him back down the corridor and out of sight. The door was left ajar behind them. Lock was suddenly gripped with anxiety again- what if Rung was going to hurt him, would Broadside know in time? If he were to leap from the couch, would it disorient Rung long enough for him to make a break for the door? Could he change his mind, ask to go home? Dimly, yes, he was aware that Tocsin and Broadside had scrambled for the money to afford this trip to the orange mech, but there were so many things that could go wrong. What if Rung wanted to see in his head? What if Rung wanted to reprogram him? _What if- What if- What if-_

  
"Oh my. Lock, Lock, online your optics, please."

  
Rung's voice, calm as his EM field, cut through the spiral of thoughts in Lock's processor, and Lock realized his sensor horns were sparking wildly from underneath his fingers, which had left his knees and were instead clutched around his helm protectively. Lock onlined his optics and found himself staring at the couch between his legs; he looked up slightly from under the brim of his helm, and saw Rung sitting in his chair, carefully arranging candies and datapads on his desk. He wasn't staring at Lock, simply aligning the objects to an invisible grid. Seeing the clutter of Rung's desk disappear with his steady hand was satisfying and entrancing. Lock watched for a breem or two until the desk was organized and his pump seemed to stop hammering in his chassis.

  
"Does that happen often? Your horns sparking like that?"

  
Lock clicked nervously, hands coming away from his helm. "Yes, sir."

  
Rung picked up the datapad Diecut had handed him, tapping it online and taking a quick note. "Is it when you are scared?"

  
"How-" Lock frowned in confusion. Even he had taken a long time to make that connection between his horns sparking and what he was feeling. "How did you know I'm scared?"

  
"Your body language. You went very stiff and made to protect yourself, then your sensor horns started sparking."

  
"Oh," Lock said, and paused. Could he speak freely to Rung? Last time he'd told Tocsin that he was scared of something, he was told that it was stupid. "I'm scared a lot. But my horns do that-" he made a "flashing" motion with his hands- "when it's really scary. Sire told me not to be scared, but it's hard."

  
Rung nodded. "It's scary to be in a new place, and have someone you don't know talk to you. I will not hurt you, but you don't know that, and it's okay to be scared. Would you like a rust stick?"

  
Lock narrowed his optics. He did like the powdery sweetness of rust sticks, but he also knew not to take fuel or treats from strange mechs. His creators said that that was how bad mechs hurt Cybertronians that trusted too much. "No, thank you."

  
"Alright!" Rung didn't seem insulted, and instead popped one of the candies in his mouth. Lock caught a glimmer of his fangs in the light before they disappeared, crunching the candies behind a guileless smile. Then Rung dusted the rust powder off his hands, picked up the datapad again. "If you want anything, a drink to wet your glossa or something to munch on, just let me know. I have quite a few treats stored here and there, and we'll be talking quite a bit, I think."

  
Lock nodded. Rung smiled again, that gentle and understanding curve of his mouth that made Lock relax, just a little bit. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will really delve into Lock's psyche, as well as some other stuff. ;)


	6. Diagnostic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lock doesn't understand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is heavily based on my own experiences with mental health professionals, both therapists and psychiatrists. Rung is some sort of ambiguous mix of the two. Cybertronian mental health services are weird.

Rung liked his candies. That was very obvious, and it would have been quite distracting for Lock if it hadn't been quite so interesting to watch the pattern the mech took; delicately take one candy, straighten the box it came from, pop the candy in his mouth, dust any residue off his servos, and nod in approval. The same pattern.

  
Lock had the distinct impression that it meant something, but couldn't figure out quite what. Then again, he had that impression about most things- that they were codes he couldn't break. He folded and unfolded his hands, tapping his fingers against the plating of his thigh. He'd taken to doing that, and no amount of scolding from Tocsin would stop the rhythmic tik-tik-tik of metal on metal.

 

Rung was currently looking over the forms Broadside had filled out. He'd asked Lock to confirm a couple things, like his age and frame stage, but not much more than that. It wasn't very reassuring to Lock.

  
"Your creator answered some survey questions for you," Rung said suddenly, causing Lock to jump and flutter his back plating nervously. Rung smiled slightly and inclined his helm. "Sorry, didn't mean to startle you. I would just like to ask you these questions again, to verify that they're your answers?"

  
"Yessir," Lock mumbled, shifting on the couch.

  
"Don't worry if I ask some different questions or say things in a way that's different from how your creator said them. You're not misremembering things, okay?"

  
Lock tipped his head to one side. He hadn't considered that but, thinking about it, probably would have been worried if he hadn't been notified beforehand. "Okay. Thank you."

 

"Alright. Here's the first one. Do you ever feel particularly desperate?"

  
"For what?" Lock contemplated what he felt on the tram earlier, the yearning to fly and have wings. Was that desperation?

  
Rung frowned in thought. "I will admit I am not typically asked that. I suppose, desperate for things to stop, for an end to things."

  
"Oh." Lock reset his optics, unsettled. "No? Thinking about things stopping is scary."

  
"Are you scared often?"

  
"Yes."

  
Rung hummed, a slow and lazy buzz of his vocalizer. He made a note on the datapad. "Back to my previous question; when you do feel desperate, what is it for?"

  
There was a brief pause, punctuated by the sound of Lock fidgeting as he searched for his words. He'd never thought much about it before. "For things to be... different, I think. I don't feel right in my frame, I want it to look different. Not like paint, but... bigger? And I want to fly, like avi'noids or- or seekers! I was pertending to fly earlier, and it made me not scared anymore. It made my CPU feel quiet. Don't- Don't tell Carrier, though."

  
Another note on the datapad. "Is your CPU usually noisy?"

  
"Yes."

  
"Describe that for me."

  
Lock gnawed on his lower lip, sharp denta nicking the metal. "I hear voices. Lots of voices. Mos'ly they sound like mecha I know. My doctor. My creators. Backbeat - he watches me when my creators are at work. Sometimes they sound like the other sparklings Backbeat watches. They say mean things and warn me about stuff that could happen."

  
Rung adjusted his glasses. "Do these things ever happen?"

  
"No. Well, sometimes?"

  
"Give me an example."

  
"A couple orns ago, I was climbin' a tower I built out of blocks. One'a the voices told me I was going to fall and dent my armor and get yelled at, an' usually I listen, but this time I did it anyways. Another sparkling ax'dentaly knocked into the tower, an' I fell and dented my armor and got yelled at, just like it said. I been listening a lot better since then," Lock finished, feeling bashful. He'd never told anyone about the voices. Usually the voices told him that if he shared, he'd be hurt or in trouble. But Broadside told him to be truthful and answer Rung's questions, so he was.

  
Rung didn't say anything for a long moment, and Lock worried he did something wrong. Lock resumed tapping on his legs, which made him feel more safe. He kept it in a steady rhythm; left-right, left-left, right-left. It was another code he didn't understand, but it made him feel in control of something.

  
After a moment Rung selected a candy off his desk, repeated his own ritual with it, and scribbled something on the datapad he held. Then he looked back at Lock with a soft smile, showing the barest glint of fanged denta.

  
"I have some more questions. These ones may be difficult to answer, but just say the truth without explaining, okay? We can discuss them in the future, if you want."

  
"Okay."

  
"Are your thoughts faster or slower than the voices in your head?"

  
"Slower." The voices in Lock's head always seemed to be instantaneous, though they repeated until Lock could decipher them.

  
"Do your thoughts ever suddenly stop?"

  
"No." The voices did, but not his own thoughts.

  
"Do you ever have violent impulses? That is, do you ever want to or feel you have to hurt other mecha or mechanimals?"

  
Lock fidgeted. "Yes."

  
"Do you act on that?" Rung's face was passive.

  
Lock's mouth twisted into a disgusted line. "No."

  
Rung nodded and smiled. "Do you want to take a break? We can do something else for a short period of time."

  
"Yes, please."

  
Rung nodded and stood, stretching slightly. He motioned for Lock to come off the couch he was sitting on. Lock stood on the couch, pedes sinking into the plush material, and then leapt the distance to the floor. He landed with a soft laugh, and smiled up at Rung. The orange mech smiled back.

  
Lock liked Rung. Rung was safe.

  
"What we can do now is something that will help me diagnose if you have a special spark, alright, Lock? This will help me know how to help you better. Your doctor, Cogswheel, forwarded me some information about your spark, but I want to do a checkup myself," Rung said, settling cross-legged on the floor. Lock sat in front of him.

  
"What're you going to do?"

  
Rung popped a panel on his arm and withdrew some cables- their color indicated they were medicables for diagnostics, like what Cogswheel used sometimes. Red and white with a light cable in the middle, currently dark. Lock tipped his helm to the side.

  
"I would like to collect some data on the frequency and intensity of your spark. Cogswheel forwarded me some notes and indicated her suspicions that you might be what's called an "outlier," or a mech that has a special spark. That could be causing different things in your CPU, which may make you nervous," Rung explained. Lock nodded in understanding. Then, anticipating a link needed, he stuck out his arm and clicked open a medical port on his wrist.

  
"Oh! Thank you, young mech, but I need diagnostic material from a different subcomputer. Specifically, the one in your torso, by your spark chamber. It collects more long-term data from your spark and is more useful to me, here," Rung said with a lilting laugh.

  
Lock lowered his arm and fidgeted. Broadside told him that it was very important to not open his chestplates to anyone but a medical professional, or to his creators if necessary. Rung counted as a medical professional, right? Even though his office looked nothing like a hospital or doctor's office, he had medicables, which had to mean something. The voices whispered cruelly in the back of Lock's CPU.

  
"...Rung?"

  
"Yes, Lock?"

  
"Can I say somethin' stupid?"

  
Rung sat back slightly, looking concerned. "Nothing you say is stupid, Lock. Everything you tell me is important."

  
"...The voices don't like you, and say I should say no."

  
Rung hummed again, that thoughtful buzz. "Can you tell me what they're saying specifically?"

  
Lock pulled his knees to his chestplate. "That if I open my chestplate, you'll hurt me. Different ways. Tear out my spark chamber, or send an override code to my fuel pump, or somethin'. They say things I don't understand but that feel bad. They also say that Carrier will come in and be mad if I open my chassis for you. Mad at you, or mad at me, or both, for different reasons?

  
"They also say you'll be mad at me, because of what you're gonna find. I don't want you mad at me."

  
Rung was quiet a moment, and then reached to his face and delicately removed his glasses. Lock studied his face, taking in his sincere optics, the concerned curve of his mouth, the way his optical ridges furrowed over his optics. Rung's field washed over him, warm and earnest. Tentatively, and full of anxiety and fear, Lock's own EM field expanded to respond. Rung very gently smiled. Then, he held out his hand.

  
"I give you my word that whatever I find, I will not be mad at you, Lock. I promise."

  
Lock considered Rung's hand for a moment, and then reached out to shake it carefully.

  
"Okay."

  
Then, very slowly, Lock opened his chestplates.

  
Rung did not move, except to hold out the end of one cable. Relieved, Lock took it and fumbled around in his chest, before slotting the cable into the port adjacent to his spark chamber. A message flashed in his HUD- _Accept uplink?_ \- and he accepted, just as Rung plugged the other end of the cable into the side of his helm. Rung offlined his optics, and Lock struggled to find something for his own to settle on. Finally, he turned his head and looked out the window, watching transports and fliers cruise in the open sky.

  
Breems passed, feeling like an eternity. Lock struggled not to fidget at the sensation of a download of data he didn't know he had stored. At one point, Rung put his glasses back on. As time crawled by like early morning traffic outside his window back home, Lock noticed a frown tugging the edge of Rung's faceplates. It deepened, grooves creasing the malleable metal, as his optical ridges turned down.   
Finally, the flow of data stopped, and Rung onlined his optics again with an unreadable expression.

  
"I would like to say, Lock, that your "voices" were right, and I am in fact not happy with the data I've found. It is not any fault of yours, though. I am more.... disappointed with your creators."

  
Lock tugged the medicable out of his chassis, trying not to let fear and anxiety well up from his tanks, into his intake, and spill out in apologies. "Why?"

  
"It's hard to explain, young one," Rung admitted. Something dark tinged his glyphs. "From initial analysis, I can safely say that you're an outlier based on the frequency of your spark. But the strength, and the radiation patterns it's putting out, indicate something else. That your spark is meant for different things than what your frame would imply. Your creators would know that, especially your Carrier. It's almost impossible for a Carrier to not sense the _call,_ as it were, of a spark."

  
Lock felt numb, apart from confusion swirling in his CPU like a fog behind his optics. The voices in his mind were silent, as though listening to Rung as well. "What's that mean?"

  
Rung stood, slowly, making his motions obvious so not to startle the sparkling before him. He turned towards the window. "Lock, I have studied many cases of mechs that have been placed in the wrong frames. Your spark puts out the same radiation patterns that a skyspark does- a mech meant to be a flier."

  
"What." Lock reeled, scrabbled backwards until the plates of his back hit the couch behind him. "I can't be, Carrier says- Carrier says fliers are sparked bad! I don't wanna be bad!"

  
Rung stiffened and turned slowly. "Your Carrier told you that fliers are bad?"

  
"Yes," Lock nodded, his hands clutching his sensor horns, which were starting to spark. "I can't be a flier, I'm not allowed, he just said that it's bad!" Electricity jumped from between his servos, arcing down his arms.

  
Rung crouched before Lock, though the sparkling didn't notice him at first. "Lock, there is no such thing as a mech being "sparked bad." All mechs have the ability to choose to be good or bad, no matter what their spark is like or what Primus intended for them, whether the ground or the sky or the sea."

  
"Why would Carrier say that? He doesn't lie!"

  
"That's hard to say," Rung said softly. Lock slowly uncurled from himself, though his panic was still obvious at the sparking of his horns. "Some Cybertronians have what's called "predjudice." It means that they believe things even though they're wrong, because it makes them feel better than other mechs. One such belief is the belief that fliers are "bad," as he told you. Many ground-mechs believe that, but it doesn't make it true."

  
"I don' wanna be a flier," Lock mumbled, avoiding Rung's gaze. "I don' wan'- Creator says my frame type is like a gift from him an' Sire. It would be mean to change."

  
"...If your tanks couldn't process platinum, would you eat it?"

  
"No?" Lock was taken aback at the change of subject.

  
"You'd probably avoid it, right?"

  
"Yes...?"

  
"Well," Rung continued, with the air of somemech that had explained something many times, "If somemech knew that you couldn't process platinum, and they gave you a box of energon candies that were filled with platinum powder, would you eat it?"

  
"No, I'd get sick!"

  
Rung smiled slightly. "Would it have been a good gift for that mech to give you? Was it very nice for them to give you something that they knew you couldn't eat?"

  
Lock was quiet a klik. Comprehension dawned over him. "Oh. No, it wasn't..."

  
"You don't have to keep a gift that isn't good for you," Rung explained, soft as the couches in the room. "Sometimes, you have to do what is best for you."

  
"Oh..." The sparks stopped flying from Lock's horns. He relaxed slightly. "Why would they do that?"

  
"Because some mechs don't believe that sparks can be meant for certain things. They don't believe that some sparks were created for certain alt-modes. Even when they're given proof..."

  
"Why?"

  
Rung smiled, this time, tinged with sadness. "I don't know, Lock. I don't know."

  
"Oh..."

  
"I think," Rung said after a moment, "That we need to bring your creator in here so that we may have a conversation with him."


	7. Apologies

Hey readers. Just giving a brief update. 

As you can probably tell, I've been struggling with picking this up again. Not for lack of trying. My files of notes and chapters-in-progress was completely lost in a computer mishap. I have no way of recovering them, among many other files that I've lost. 

I want to say, before anything else, that I really appreciate everyone that's read "Fledgling" so far. It's a story near and dear to my heart and I want to tell it and have it be read. I'm not abandoning this story permanently, as I still want to tell it.

But it is being shelved, for now, while I work on other projects. Hopefully I'll be done grieving in the future and will pick up where I left off a better writer with more discipline. But for now, it hurts to think of what I lost, and that saps my drive. 

So, thank you for reading, but there won't be more of this any time soon.

-Twig

**Author's Note:**

> Here it is! This is where my labor of love starts, and hopefully I'll be able to keep this up! I do have a plot and end in mind, but I don't know how long it'll take to get there. Thank you for joining me! I'll try to update at least once a week, but hopefully more often than that if work permits.
> 
> My tumblr is twigwise.tumblr.com! Feel free to message me here or there.


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